The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1887-06-09

| That nestles In each heart
Which gushes with the memory
That home alone imparts
| There Is a fire in every soul,
| Celestial warm and bright,
| Which burns for fatherland and home,
| For God and human right.
| This fire has been the guiding star,
| This spring has been the stay,
OF untold throngs, in freedoms cause,
Who sleep unwept to-day;
Who fill the graves of other times
| And other lands than ours;
| Have been caressed by other tears
And embosomed other flowers.
How strangely cruel we to-day
| Employ lifes fieeting span,
The same cold, cruel work goes on,
| Man still may murder man.
| While we, of all Gods favored ones
BY justice feel upborn-
Mans inhumanity to man
| We meet to day to mourn.
From the diversity of human thoughts
and interests and the imperfection of hui
man judgments every great question has
and must have its advocates and its opo-
nents, Personal interest must be the
foundation stone with us all upon which
to build our calculations for the future,
and from which, to large extent, must
emanate our conception of duty to others.
AS good and evil can only be measured or
defined by comparison, so right and wrong
lain upon the scales of human frailty will
often find their equipoise disturbed by
seltishness, or their accuracy destroyed by
malice or envy. If this proposition be
true it would, therefore seem reasonable
to assume that the factor we call con-
science is as likely to become enlisted on
one side of controversy as the other.
Here the speaker illustrated his theory
from the lives of Martin Luther, Peter
the Hermit and other historical charac-
tiers.
And now to summarize by bringing the
comparison within the scope and memo
ry of the generation When the entire
loyal North. during the war of the rebel
lion, were upon their knees imploring di-
vine assistance in just cause, it was a
custom with Stonewall Jackson, in some
respects the ablest general the South ever
had, upon the eve of battle to dismount
kneel by the roadside at the head of his
column and invoke the guidance of that
same just God. These are strange incon-
sitencies, but here they are, and they are
| facts.
| In 1861 the men of the South and the
men of the North sprang to arme; the men
of the South to maintain the sovreignity
of the States authority. The men of the
North to defend and perpetuate to all time,
if possible, the sovreignity of the Union
of States. OF the causes which led to
this desperate and uncompromising con-
dition of the public mind we have moth
ing to do to-day. The historian of the fu-
ture will find in it simply another of those
conflicts which have always been spring
ing up when two antagonistic forms of
civilization are brought into intimate re-
latiOns; and the consciousness of right
will be found to have been as prominent a
factor on the part of the defenders of the
State as, the defenders of the Union, for
men never have fought as the men of the
South fought for glory or for gold.
What, then, was this principle, you ask
which must be solved, demonstrated OF
purchased at the price of so much blood
1t seems to me simply this: the people of
the South had reasoned from pr0ng prem.
ises up to very reasonable conclusions.
But, say the people of the North, your
foundation is wrong. Your premises are
based upon the right of human slavery
and if you insist upon building upon that
you make yourselves the enemies of hu.
mainly by being the Oppressors of the
weak. Haughtily they reply: the fathers
who had the courage to deliver the colo
MES, and the wisdom to found the con.
stitution laid slavery as the corner stone
and there it shall stand or perish all.
They staked their lives, their fortunes
and their sacred honor upon the issue, and
the bayonet alone convinced them they
were wrong. But there was this differ.
ence between the soldier of the South and
the soldier of the North the soldier of
the South if he CHANGED to be South
Carolinian and was called to do battle in
Virginia, he consented to it only because
South Carolina placed him there. If he
was Virginian and was called to face
the armies of the West, resolutely he re-
sponded because there he could better de.
fend Virginia. In fact each State, if
except North Carolina, seemed to regard
with a feeling of superiority their own in
situations, their own men. No aspiration
seemed ever allowed to reach beyond the
limits of the parent State; while the Nor
thern soldier seemed scarcely to know or
care whether his state had boundary line
or not
If the green hills of Vermont was the home of
his childhood,
And her valleys and rivers the sport of his youth
As her fir tree and maple war the pride of her
wildwood,
so her sturdy brare manhood was his pride and
her truth.
But he loved not Vermont alone for her glory,
He loved her no less for her heroes of State.
But he loved her the more for her loyal devotion
To Americd's flag undirided and great
At the mention of Stark or Putnam, or
of Ethan Allen, the Northern soldier re-
called only that conflict in which a Vir-
ginian led the colonies to victory. While
he was proud of his own heroes he loved
no less his Washington, his Marion, his
Putnam, his Green and his Gates. But
what was greater, and grander, and more
glorious than all else, the Northern SOL
der loved humanity, and humanity knows
no State.